


Gracious

by mnsg



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Love, Lowkey Art Smut, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 00:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7663549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnsg/pseuds/mnsg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cause I don't want to, to trouble your mind with the childish design of how it all should go.<br/>But I love you so, but it all comes clear, when the wind is settled, I'll be here, you know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gracious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bazooka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazooka/gifts).



> Stop. Pull up [Gracious by Ben Howard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYkZSgReAC4). Then listen to it on loop (or for however long it takes to read this).

“Kyungsoo-yah.” Chanyeol’s broken morning voice grates on Kyungsoo’s nerves; he’d just fallen asleep again after Chanyeol’s alarm went off and he was left alone in their bed. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to say goodbye before I leave.”

“You’re leaving?” Kyungsoo asks, and he tries to sit up without opening his eyes, which results in the gentle collide of his forehead with Chanyeol’s chin. “Ow.”

Chanyeol laughs softly before reaching out and pressing his hand to Kyungsoo’s forehead. “Yeah, I got called in early. We got slotted for an emergency surgery in an hour and I wanna have time to go over the charts before we get started.”

“Mm. Okay.” He angles his chin up and pushes forward slightly, hoping to catch Chanyeol’s lips against his own. Chanyeol meets him in the middle to indulge him with kisses against his mouth and chin, making him warm, tasting like toothpaste. “Good luck today.”

“Thank you,” Chanyeol replies, words slurred through the press of their lips. Kyungsoo smiles, and then he’s getting kisses to his teeth. He’d feel bad for Chanyeol having to deal with his morning breath if Chanyeol was literally anyone else, but he isn’t. He’s Chanyeol, he doesn’t do jack shit halfway, and he’s gently squeezing the side of Kyungsoo’s neck as they pull apart. 

 

Kyungsoo leans up against the lip of the deep double sinks in his boss’s kitchen, listening to the water run as it heats up, trying very hard not to descend into a cloud of despair and irritation. There’s a room full of well-to-dos upstairs, and every single one of them is loud and opinionated. He’d caught something briefly - something so ignorant and hateful and sickening that he decided not to go back up there again unless he absolutely had to. The support staff can take care of serving the rest of the luncheon, and it’s doubtful that anyone will notice his absence.

 _Still waters_ , his father used to say, back when they still talked. _You’re still waters, no one would guess what’s going on inside that head of yours_. It’s always been true: on the outside, he looks like he’s just focused - on the inside, though, he’s more than likely having what some professionals might describe as a breakdown. 

These people…quite frankly, they disgust him. He sees people like this every weekday and some Saturdays, too, and they’re almost always the same. They talk needlessly, filling the air with platitudes that mean nothing, trotting out opinions based on nothing, making eyes full of a great big _nothing_. They have more money than they know what to do with, and they spend it on ugly handbags and shitty polo shirts. Sometimes they laugh at his limited English. They pick the capers off his dishes and request salt and pepper “for flavor.” 

He’s looking at a pile of chopped celery on the prep counter across from him; he notices that he dropped one on the floor. For some reason, this makes him angrier than anything the snobs upstairs could have said, and he turns on his heel to start the dishes. 

 

[KYUNGSOO 14:20] i love you

 

Kyungsoo watches Chanyeol shout happily, surprised by Minseok stealing in behind him and whisking the ball away. Minseok easily shows up everyone else on the field, but it’s not hard to do with their ragtag little group. Truthfully, Chanyeol should probably not be allowed to play with the rest of them - his clumsiness when it comes to sports is part of the reason Kyungsoo is sitting this one out. 

Across the field, across so many meters, Chanyeol catches Kyungsoo’s eye and smiles. This is the smile that has been bringing Kyungsoo to his knees for three years now, the one that terrifies, humbles, encourages, and excites him. Kyungsoo feels like a teenager, blushing and besotted, and he can’t help but smile back. For the millionth time in their relationship, he’s made aware of just how damn lucky he is. 

That Chanyeol loves him this much, that Chanyeol keeps that smile just for him, that Chanyeol knows him so intimately and hasn’t run away, that Chanyeol is the sun and the moon and the thing holding Kyungsoo to this earth - it all adds up to a sum Kyungsoo can’t ever hope to repay.

 

They’re lying in bed at 9PM like a couple of grandpas, and this is the first time Kyungsoo has felt relaxed since Chanyeol left for work this morning. Chanyeol is telling him about his day, which is, unashamedly, sometimes the best part of Kyungsoo’s. 

“What about you?” Chanyeol asks. His arm is pillowing Kyungsoo’s head, and their fingers are laced together over Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Despite having taken a quick shower, Chanyeol still smells like the hospital - sterile and faintly sick - but it’s so… _Chanyeol_ Kyungsoo hardly minds. “You had that charity luncheon this afternoon, right?”

“Mm,” Kyungsoo replies, evenly. “It was okay.”

Chanyeol can read him like a book. “Really. Do you want to talk about it or should we change the subject?”

“Change the subject,” Kyungsoo says, shifting to nuzzle into Chanyeol’s shoulder. “We don’t have to talk at all, actually.”

Chanyeol chuckles, that raspy deep-in-his-throat sound he makes only for Kyungsoo. He reaches with his free hand to cup Kyungsoo’s jaw, to tilt Kyungsoo’s face up, to bring their lips together. “You. Normally. Love. Talking,” he says, punctuating each word with a kiss. 

“Right, I forgot,” Kyungsoo says, his breath going a little ragged. They’re all tangled beneath the blankets, their legs pretzeled together in such a way as to provide the perfect angle for Kyungsoo to just…push….

“Oh - my god,” Chanyeol huffs out. He breaks their kiss to look down (fruitlessly) at their hips, and quickly redirects his hands to Kyungsoo’s ass. He pulls them close together, grinding up against Kyungsoo in one long, smooth roll. His hand goes back to holding Kyungsoo’s face, and then everything kind of breaks loose. Tongues map, throats gasp, Kyungsoo is rolled onto his back so Chanyeol can hover over him. 

It’s tame, so unlike how Kyungsoo imagined sex would be at age twenty-seven. Truthfully, he doesn’t quite know what he imagined, but it certainly isn’t this. It isn’t Chanyeol fumbling over the buttons on his flannel pajama shirt, or Kyungsoo being too lazy and/or forgetful to take off his socks; it isn’t the supernatural patience he has acquired for Chanyeol’s inability to locate the lube; it isn’t the gentle tautness in his thighs when Chanyeol spreads them to make room for himself; it isn’t the soft bite of Chanyeol’s teeth on his earlobe; it isn’t the way he still needs to jack himself off in order to come. It isn’t anything. It’s everything. 

 

[YEOLLIE 16:13] oh, i love you too

 

The next morning, Kyungsoo is concentrating on breakfast. Chanyeol’s off for the next two days, and they’re planning to make the most of it with a trip downtown and maybe a hike if Kyungsoo doesn’t hate himself after the museum. The two of them need a big breakfast and he intends to see it happen. With no mushrooms. 

“You know, if you keep staring at the vegetables like that, you won’t even need to use the stove to cook them,” Chanyeol says, startling Kyungsoo by appearing out of nowhere (and being half naked, wet, and generally himself). “Laser eyes.”

Kyungsoo ignores him in favor of staring at the vegetables even harder, willing them to be so delicious Chanyeol apologizes for being obnoxious. This, of course, does not deter Chanyeol, who just crowds up behind him and wraps his shower-wet arms over his shoulders and across his chest. Loud kisses are pressed against his cheekbone, and Kyungsoo can _feel_ Chanyeol smiling. 

“You’re rude,” Kyungsoo says, quietly. “I should make you eat dry cereal for breakfast. You don’t deserve my cooking.”

Chanyeol laughs and settles for pressing their cheeks together tightly and hugging him closer. “That’s probably true,” he says. “Though I’d definitely die without you around to feed me, Soo.” 

“Is that even a question,” Kyungsoo grumbles, which only solicits another loud, smacking kiss. He stops stirring the vegetables for a moment, placing both hands on the edge of the stove. “Yeollie.” 

“Mm.” Lips press into the crook of his neck. 

“You know I - you know I love you a lot, right?” 

“Yeah. I know that very well.” Chanyeol’s voice has taken on a serious tone; he can tell immediately where Kyungsoo is at. He has a gift. 

“Okay.” 

 

Once, Kyungsoo found the baby journal his mother kept from the time he was born up until he was about three. In it, she remarked that her second son was quite different from her first, that he was quieter and less fussy, that he had chubbier thighs, and that sometimes she was frightened of the way he watched her. She worried that all the watching and the quiet meant that something was wrong. She took him to the doctor to check, just in case, but she was told he was just a smart cookie, that when he grew up he’d become a regular Sherlock Holmes. His mother noted her distaste for the doctor’s flippant attitude and never mentioned it again.

It’s something he hasn’t grown out of, the watching. He still makes a habit of absorbing everything and then cataloging it, filing details away for future reference. 

Details like the way Chanyeol’s ears turn pink at the mere suggestion of a dirty joke. The way he offers everything up to anyone he trusts, giving himself over in order to make them laugh or smile or be at ease. The way he frowns when he finds a mushroom in his food. The way his hips carry him when he walks, the way his skin stretches over his ribs. The way he touches Kyungsoo, all softroughcareful, when they’re alone. 

Kyungsoo’s internal file for Chanyeol is stuffed over capacity, and yet there’s always something new to learn. Something Kyungsoo couldn’t have accounted for, something to surprise him. Something else that weaves into the organized gangle of happiness, love, limb, and muscle to make Kyungsoo love him even more than he ever thought he’d be capable of. 

**Author's Note:**

> For my darling, most beloved Grace. I hope this comes somewhat close to what you needed today. 
> 
> (I've never written Chansoo before, so pls forgive any...weirdness.) 
> 
> [tumblr](http://www.mnsg.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/honeyjimi)


End file.
